Does anyone know of on off the shelf digital hours counter or a kit to build one that can be used to count hours of operation (for an ARC REF75SE amp)? Something that easily and automatically has a running tally of hours that the amp was turned on ? Something must exist or it looks like there are several inexpensive digital counters used for lawn tractors and similar that should be able to work for this purpose?
I suspect that you could use a lawn mower hours meter using the tube power supply instead of the magneto voltage.
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You can use a Runleader RL-HM010 resettable LCD Hour Meter.
It comes in 2 versions, DC 4.5-90V or AC 86-230V.
It comes in 2 versions, DC 4.5-90V or AC 86-230V.
Very easy to do and cheap- I bought one of the lawnmower hours counters suggested above on Amazon for $16, I bought a plastic housing box for it for about $5. I cut out the box to fit the timer. I took a 3.5 mm power cord and plugged it into the 12v dc trigger "out" socket on the back of my tube amp. I took the 3.5mm trigger cord from my power amp and plugged it into the trigger "on" socket on the tube amp. Now when I turn on the pre amp, it turns on the power amp- and- the power amp 12 v trigger "Out" socket passes thru the 12 v signal to the timer and the timer turns on, counting hours of use. Super cheap and effective !